Human Rights on the Internet: What Protects You Online in the MENA Region
In 2025, Iraq cut the internet six times for school exams. Algeria and Jordan left the connection on but blocked messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram while students sat their papers. Sudan shut down mobile data four times between July 7 and 10, right in the middle of national exams.
The reason given each time was cheating. The side effects reached far past the exam hall. Anyone who relies on mobile data for work, banking or reaching family loses it too.
Those are human rights questions, even if nobody in the ministry framed them that way. This guide explains which rights apply online, what the law says about limiting them, and how that plays out for young people across the MENA region.
Do human rights apply online?
Yes, and this is settled international position, not an opinion. In 2012 the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 20/8, which says the rights people have offline must also be protected online. It has repeated the point in later resolutions. The 2016 resolution (32/13) went further and condemned measures that intentionally block or disrupt access to information online.
The legal texts behind this are older than the internet:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) covers privacy in Article 12 and expression, including the right to "seek, receive and impart information through any media", in Article 19.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights repeats those protections in binding treaty form. Many MENA states are parties to it.
- The Arab Charter on Human Rights, adopted by the Arab League, protects freedom of opinion and expression "through any medium" in Article 32 and privacy in Article 21.
Enforcement is where things get uneven. A treaty does not unblock your WhatsApp. What it does is give you and the organizations around you a standard to point at when a restriction goes too far.
The rights you use every day online
Freedom of expression
You post a comment under a news story, share a meme about a minister, or write a thread criticizing your university. That is expression, and it is protected, including when it is critical or unpopular.
It has limits everywhere. Incitement to violence and defamation can be restricted in any legal system. The fight in our region is over where the line sits, and over laws that stretch "protecting public order" or "family values" until a joke or a tweet can become a criminal case.
Privacy
Privacy covers who can see your messages, your location, your browsing and your photos, and what they can do with them. The threats come from two directions. Companies collect far more than their apps need, and states can read or demand access to communications without a warrant or any meaningful oversight.
Some countries now have data protection laws, including Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law (No. 151 of 2020) and Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law. How well they are enforced varies, and most apply with broad exemptions for state bodies. Our guide to protecting your privacy on social media covers the settings you control yourself.
Access to information
You cannot use your other rights without being able to get online. Shutdowns, throttling and platform bans all hit this right directly. It also covers what you can find once you are online. If a government blocks an independent news site, or a platform quietly demotes your posts, your access to information shrinks even though the internet is technically on.
Association and assembly
Joining a group chat, a Facebook page or a volunteer network is association. Organizing an online campaign or a live-stream is assembly. Both rights apply on the internet, and both get tested when group chats are monitored, platforms are blocked before protests, or organizers are summoned over what they coordinated online.
When can a government limit these rights?
Most of the rights above are not absolute. Under Article 19(3) of the ICCPR, a restriction on expression has to meet three conditions at once:
- It is set out in a clear, published law.
- It serves a recognized aim, such as protecting national security, public order, public health or the rights of others.
- It is necessary and proportionate, meaning no less intrusive measure would do the job.
Apply that to an exam shutdown. Cheating is a real problem. But schools can move papers, rotate questions, use sealed exam centers and tighten invigilation, and none of those cut off a whole country. Digital rights groups argue that is why a nationwide blackout fails the proportionality test. Governments that use shutdowns generally say they are protecting exam integrity or public order.
The same test is useful for everyday restrictions. When an app is blocked or a post is removed, ask whether there was a law, a stated reason and a narrower option.
How these rights are tested in MENA
Internet shutdowns
Access Now, the group behind the #KeepItOn campaign, documented at least 52 shutdowns across 15 MENA countries in 2025. Worldwide it counted 313, the highest since it started tracking in 2016.
Armed conflict was the most common trigger in the region, with shutdowns recorded in Palestine, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Cutting connectivity in a war zone isolates people from relatives, emergency information and anyone trying to document what is happening. Iran recorded 11 shutdowns, the most of any country in the region.
Exams were the second pattern. Iraq, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and Sudan all restricted access during national exams in 2025. Algeria has disrupted the baccalaureate period since 2016. Sudan is a useful reminder that this can change: Access Now noted that it refrained from exam shutdowns in 2024, then returned to them in 2025.
Cybercrime and content laws
Several MENA states have cybercrime laws with broad, loosely defined offences. Jordan's Cybercrime Law No. 17 of 2023 drew criticism from Human Rights Watch and other groups for vague wording around "fake news" and defamation. Egypt's 2018 Law No. 175 on anti-cyber and information technology crimes has been cited in prosecutions of social media users. In practice, a post that is legal in one country can lead to an arrest in the next.
Platforms and moderation
Rights are tested by private companies too. In 2022, a review that Meta commissioned from the consultancy BSR found that the company's content moderation during the May 2021 escalation in Palestine had an adverse human rights impact on Palestinian users' freedom of expression. It pointed to over-enforcement against Arabic content.
That is a concrete example of why Arabic-speaking users have a stake in how platforms moderate. A platform's rules are not law, but they decide what millions of people can say and see.
What you can do when your rights are limited
Most people cannot sue a ministry over a blackout. You still have options.
- Name the right in plain words. "This blocks my access to information" carries more weight in a complaint, petition or public post than "this is unfair".
- Record what happened. Note the time, your network provider, your city, and which apps or sites stopped working. Screenshots of error messages help. Do this only if it is safe where you live.
- Report it to people who count. Access Now's #KeepItOn coalition tracks shutdowns, and its Digital Security Helpline supports civil society and activists who are targeted. OONI, the Open Observatory of Network Interference, runs a free app called OONI Probe that tests whether specific sites and apps are blocked on your network, and publishes the results openly.
- Check the legal basis before you panic. If an app is blocked, was there an order, who issued it, and for how long? Knowing helps you decide whether to challenge it or work around it.
- Learn who else is working on this. Regional networks exist, and cross-border collaboration on digital rights in MENA is often where scattered frustration becomes pressure someone has to answer.
Verification matters here too. During shutdowns and conflicts, rumors fill the gap that reliable information leaves. Our guide on how to spot misinformation online gives you a quick routine for checking what you see before you share it.
Where Gen-D Rights fits
Gen-D Rights is a youth-led initiative working on digital rights across the MENA region and the Euro-Mediterranean diaspora. Everything we publish on privacy, verification and online safety rests on the same position: these are your rights, and no platform or government has to grant them. You can read more about what Gen-D Rights does and how to get involved.
Digital rights also land harder on some people than others. Women and girls face online harassment and image-based abuse that can follow them offline, which is covered in our piece on combating violence against women in the MENA region.